Was the "poor Peter" of Cranford the Aga Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad, or was he not? As somebody says, that was the question.
In my own home, whenever people had nothing else to do, they blamed me for want of discretion1. Indiscretion was my bug-bear fault. Everybody has a bug-bear fault, a sort of standing2 characteristic-- a piece de resistance for their friends to cut at; and in general they cut and come again. I was tired of being called indiscreet and incautious; and I determined3 for once to prove myself a model of prudence4 and wisdom. I would not even hint my suspicions respecting the Aga. I would collect evidence and carry it home to lay before my father, as the family friend of the two Miss Jenkynses.
In my search after facts, I was often reminded of a description my father had once given of a ladies' committee that he had had to preside over. He said he could not help thinking of a passage in Dickens, which spoke5 of a chorus in which every man took the tune6 he knew best, and sang it to his own satisfaction. So, at this charitable committee, every lady took the subject uppermost in her mind, and talked about it to her own great contentment, but not much to the advancement7 of the subject they had met to discuss. But even that committee could have been nothing to the Cranford ladies when I attempted to gain some clear and definite information as to poor Peter's height, appearance, and when and where he was seen and heard of last. For instance, I remember asking Miss Pole (and I thought the question was very opportune8, for I put it when I met her at a call at Mrs Forrester's, and both the ladies had known Peter, and I imagined that they might refresh each other's memories)--I asked Miss Pole what was the very last thing they had ever heard about him; and then she named the absurd report to which I have alluded9, about his having been elected Great Lama of Thibet; and this was a signal for each lady to go off on her separate idea. Mrs Forrester's start was made on the veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh--whether I thought he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter was not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he had not been freckled10. I was thankful to see her double upon Peter; but, in a moment, the delusive11 lady was off upon Rowland's Kalydor, and the merits of cosmetics12 and hair oils in general, and holding forth13 so fluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas, the beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian bonds, and the share market, and her poor opinion of joint-stock banks in general, and of that one in particular in which Miss Matty's money was invested. In vain I put in "When was it--in what year was it that you heard that Mr Peter was the Great Lama?" They only joined issue to dispute whether llamas were carnivorous animals or not; in which dispute they were not quite on fair grounds, as Mrs Forrester (after they had grown warm and cool again) acknowledged that she always confused carnivorous and graminivorous together, just as she did horizontal and perpendicular14; but then she apologised for it very prettily15, by saying that in her day the only use people made of four-syllabled words was to teach how they should be spelt.
The only fact I gained from this conversation was that certainly Peter had last been heard of in India, "or that neighbourhood"; and that this scanty16 intelligence of his whereabouts had reached Cranford in the year when Miss Pole had brought her Indian muslin gown, long since worn out (we washed it and mended it, and traced its decline and fall into a window-blind before we could go on); and in a year when Wombwell came to Cranford, because Miss Matty had wanted to see an elephant in order that she might the better imagine Peter riding on one; and had seen a boa-constrictor too, which was more than she wished to imagine in her fancy-pictures of Peter's locality; and in a year when Miss Jenkyns had learnt some piece of poetry off by heart, and used to say, at all the Cranford parties, how Peter was "surveying mankind from China to Peru," which everybody had thought very grand, and rather appropriate, because India was between China and Peru, if you took care to turn the globe to the left instead of the right.
I suppose all these inquiries17 of mine, and the consequent curiosity excited in the minds of my friends, made us blind and deaf to what was going on around us. It seemed to me as if the sun rose and shone, and as if the rain rained on Cranford, just as usual, and I did not notice any sign of the times that could be considered as a prognostic of any uncommon18 event; and, to the best of my belief, not only Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester, but even Miss Pole herself, whom we looked upon as a kind of prophetess, from the knack19 she had of foreseeing things before they came to pass--although she did not like to disturb her friends by telling them her foreknowledge--even Miss Pole herself was breathless with astonishment20 when she came to tell us of the astounding21 piece of news. But I must recover myself; the contemplation of it, even at this distance of time, has taken away my breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue22 my emotion, my spelling will go too.
We were sitting--Miss Matty and I--much as usual, she in the blue chintz easy-chair, with her back to the light, and her knitting in her hand, I reading aloud the St James's Chronicle. A few minutes more, and we should have gone to make the little alterations23 in dress usual before calling-time (twelve o'clock) in Cranford. I remember the scene and the date well. We had been talking of the signor's rapid recovery since the warmer weather had set in, and praising Mr Hoggins's skill, and lamenting24 his want of refinement25 and manner (it seems a curious coincidence that this should have been our subject, but so it was), when a knock was heard--a caller's knock--three distinct taps--and we were flying (that is to say, Miss Matty could not walk very fast, having had a touch of rheumatism) to our rooms, to change cap and collars, when Miss Pole arrested us by calling out, as she came up the stairs, "Don't go--I can't wait--it is not twelve, I know--but never mind your dress--I must speak to you." We did our best to look as if it was not we who had made the hurried movement, the sound of which she had heard; for, of course, we did not like to have it supposed that we had any old clothes that it was convenient to wear out in the "sanctuary26 of home," as Miss Jenkyns once prettily called the back parlour, where she was tying up preserves. So we threw our gentility with double force into our manners, and very genteel we were for two minutes while Miss Pole recovered breath, and excited our curiosity strongly by lifting up her hands in amazement27, and bringing them down in silence, as if what she had to say was too big for words, and could only be expressed by pantomime.
"What do you think, Miss Matty? What DO you think? Lady Glenmire is to marry--is to be married, I mean--Lady Glenmire--Mr Hoggins-- Mr Hoggins is going to marry Lady Glenmire!"
"Marry!" said we. "Marry! Madness!"
"Marry!" said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her character. "_I_ said marry! as you do; and I also said, 'What a fool my lady is going to make of herself!' I could have said 'Madness!' but I controlled myself, for it was in a public shop that I heard of it. Where feminine delicacy28 is gone to, I don't know! You and I, Miss Matty, would have been ashamed to have known that our marriage was spoken of in a grocer's shop, in the hearing of shopmen!"
"But," said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering from a blow, "perhaps it is not true. Perhaps we are doing her injustice29."
"No," said Miss Pole. "I have taken care to ascertain30 that. I went straight to Mrs Fitz-Adam, to borrow a cookery-book which I knew she had; and I introduced my congratulations a propos of the difficulty gentlemen must have in house-keeping; and Mrs Fitz-Adam bridled31 up, and said that she believed it was true, though how and where I could have heard it she did not know. She said her brother and Lady Glenmire had come to an understanding at last. 'Understanding!' such a coarse word! But my lady will have to come down to many a want of refinement. I have reason to believe Mr Hoggins sups on bread-and-cheese and beer every night.
"Marry!" said Miss Matty once again. "Well! I never thought of it. Two people that we know going to be married. It's coming very near!"
"So near that my heart stopped beating when I heard of it, while you might have counted twelve," said Miss Pole.
"One does not know whose turn may come next. Here, in Cranford, poor Lady Glenmire might have thought herself safe," said Miss Matty, with a gentle pity in her tones.
"Bah!" said Miss Pole, with a toss of her head. "Don't you remember poor dear Captain Brown's song 'Tibbie Fowler,' and the line -
'Set her on the Tintock tap, The wind will blaw a man till her.'"
"That was because 'Tibbie Fowler' was rich, I think."
"Well! there was a kind of attraction about Lady Glenmire that I, for one, should be ashamed to have."
I put in my wonder. "But how can she have fancied Mr Hoggins? I am not surprised that Mr Hoggins has liked her."
"Oh! I don't know. Mr Hoggins is rich, and very pleasant- looking," said Miss Matty, "and very good-tempered and kind- hearted."
"She has married for an establishment, that's it. I suppose she takes the surgery with it," said Miss Pole, with a little dry laugh at her own joke. But, like many people who think they have made a severe and sarcastic32 speech, which yet is clever of its kind, she began to relax in her grimness from the moment when she made this allusion33 to the surgery; and we turned to speculate on the way in which Mrs Jamieson would receive the news. The person whom she had left in charge of her house to keep off followers34 from her maids to set up a follower35 of her own! And that follower a man whom Mrs Jamieson had tabooed as vulgar, and inadmissible to Cranford society, not merely on account of his name, but because of his voice, his complexion36, his boots, smelling of the stable, and himself, smelling of drugs. Had he ever been to see Lady Glenmire at Mrs Jamieson's? Chloride of lime would not purify the house in its owner's estimation if he had. Or had their interviews been confined to the occasional meetings in the chamber37 of the poor sick conjuror38, to whom, with all our sense of the mesalliance, we could not help allowing that they had both been exceedingly kind? And now it turned out that a servant of Mrs Jamieson's had been ill, and Mr Hoggins had been attending her for some weeks. So the wolf had got into the fold, and now he was carrying off the shepherdess. What would Mrs Jamieson say? We looked into the darkness of futurity as a child gazes after a rocket up in the cloudy sky, full of wondering expectation of the rattle39, the discharge, and the brilliant shower of sparks and light. Then we brought ourselves down to earth and the present time by questioning each other (being all equally ignorant, and all equally without the slightest data to build any conclusions upon) as to when IT would take place? Where? How much a year Mr Hoggins had? Whether she would drop her title? And how Martha and the other correct servants in Cranford would ever be brought to announce a married couple as Lady Glenmire and Mr Hoggins? But would they be visited? Would Mrs Jamieson let us? Or must we choose between the Honourable40 Mrs Jamieson and the degraded Lady Glenmire? We all liked Lady Glenmire the best. She was bright, and kind, and sociable41, and agreeable; and Mrs Jamieson was dull, and inert42, and pompous43, and tiresome44. But we had acknowledged the sway of the latter so long, that it seemed like a kind of disloyalty now even to meditate45 disobedience to the prohibition46 we anticipated.
Mrs Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and patched collars; and we forgot all about them in our eagerness to see how she would bear the information, which we honourably47 left to Miss Pole, to impart, although, if we had been inclined to take unfair advantage, we might have rushed in ourselves, for she had a most out-of-place fit of coughing for five minutes after Mrs Forrester entered the room. I shall never forget the imploring48 expression of her eyes, as she looked at us over her pocket-handkerchief. They said, as plain as words could speak, "Don't let Nature deprive me of the treasure which is mine, although for a time I can make no use of it." And we did not.
Mrs Forrester's surprise was equal to ours; and her sense of injury rather greater, because she had to feel for her Order, and saw more fully49 than we could do how such conduct brought stains on the aristocracy.
When she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured to subside50 into calmness; but Miss Matty was really upset by the intelligence she had heard. She reckoned it up, and it was more than fifteen years since she had heard of any of her acquaintance going to be married, with the one exception of Miss Jessie Brown; and, as she said, it gave her quite a shock, and made her feel as if she could not think what would happen next.
I don't know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a real fact, but I have noticed that, just after the announcement of an engagement in any set, the unmarried ladies in that set flutter out in an unusual gaiety and newness of dress, as much as to say, in a tacit and unconscious manner, "We also are spinsters." Miss Matty and Miss Pole talked and thought more about bonnets51, gowns, caps, and shawls, during the fortnight that succeeded this call, than I had known them do for years before. But it might be the spring weather, for it was a warm and pleasant March; and merinoes and beavers52, and woollen materials of all sorts were but ungracious receptacles of the bright sun's glancing rays. It had not been Lady Glenmire's dress that had won Mr Hoggins's heart, for she went about on her errands of kindness more shabby than ever. Although in the hurried glimpses I caught of her at church or elsewhere she appeared rather to shun53 meeting any of her friends, her face seemed to have almost something of the flush of youth in it; her lips looked redder and more trembling full than in their old compressed state, and her eyes dwelt on all things with a lingering light, as if she was learning to love Cranford and its belongings54. Mr Hoggins looked broad and radiant, and creaked up the middle aisle55 at church in a brand-new pair of top-boots--an audible, as well as visible, sign of his purposed change of state; for the tradition went, that the boots he had worn till now were the identical pair in which he first set out on his rounds in Cranford twenty-five years ago; only they had been new-pieced, high and low, top and bottom, heel and sole, black leather and brown leather, more times than any one could tell.
None of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction the marriage by congratulating either of the parties. We wished to ignore the whole affair until our liege lady, Mrs Jamieson, returned. Till she came back to give us our cue, we felt that it would be better to consider the engagement in the same light as the Queen of Spain's legs--facts which certainly existed, but the less said about the better. This restraint upon our tongues--for you see if we did not speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get answers to the questions that we longed to ask?--was beginning to be irksome, and our idea of the dignity of silence was paling before our curiosity, when another direction was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades from grocer and cheesemonger to man-milliner, as occasion required, that the spring fashions were arrived, and would be exhibited on the following Tuesday at his rooms in High Street. Now Miss Matty had been only waiting for this before buying herself a new silk gown. I had offered, it is true, to send to Drumble for patterns, but she had rejected my proposal, gently implying that she had not forgotten her disappointment about the sea-green turban. I was thankful that I was on the spot now, to counteract56 the dazzling fascination57 of any yellow or scarlet58 silk.
I must say a word or two here about myself. I have spoken of my father's old friendship for the Jenkyns family; indeed, I am not sure if there was not some distant relationship. He had willingly allowed me to remain all the winter at Cranford, in consideration of a letter which Miss Matty had written to him about the time of the panic, in which I suspect she had exaggerated my powers and my bravery as a defender59 of the house. But now that the days were longer and more cheerful, he was beginning to urge the necessity of my return; and I only delayed in a sort of odd forlorn hope that if I could obtain any clear information, I might make the account given by the signora of the Aga Jenkyns tally60 with that of "poor Peter," his appearance and disappearance61, which I had winnowed62 out of the conversation of Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester.
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1
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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7
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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opportune
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| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11
delusive
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| adj.欺骗的，妄想的 | |
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cosmetics
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| n.化妆品 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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15
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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16
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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17
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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18
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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21
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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23
alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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29
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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30
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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31
bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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34
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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35
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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36
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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conjuror
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| n.魔术师，变戏法者 | |
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39
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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40
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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41
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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42
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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43
pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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45
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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46
prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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47
honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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48
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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50
subside
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| vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降 | |
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51
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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52
beavers
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| 海狸( beaver的名词复数 )； 海狸皮毛； 棕灰色； 拼命工作的人 | |
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53
shun
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| vt.避开，回避，避免 | |
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54
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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55
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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56
counteract
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| vt.对…起反作用，对抗，抵消 | |
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57
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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58
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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59
defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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60
tally
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| n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致 | |
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61
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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62
winnowed
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| adj.扬净的，风选的v.扬( winnow的过去式和过去分词 )；辨别；选择；除去 | |
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